Earlier in the month I had received a formal looking form letter from the fire investigators about a review of the their first impressions of the building and its condition after the blaze of October 30th. We collected in the garage adjacent to the boarded up building. There were insurance men and lawyers and firemen and building representatives. They looked serious and used to working in cold, wet, rickety conditions.
After we all signed in, a fire investigator began describing the building as it stood before the fire. It was built around 1890-1900. It was sold to its current owners at a bankruptcy sale in 2013 or 2014, it had been occupied that entire time. The previous owners had erected the warren of rooms, often neglecting to adjust the sprinkler system to the drop ceilings they installed. The current owners had approval to abandon sprinkler system. That said, it appeared that some of the existing sprinkler heads were open and had passed water during the fire.
The next speaker was a representative from the Fort Wayne Fire department. He told us that around 2:55 in the morning, a passerby had seen smoke pouring out of the outside light fixtures on the south side of the building and called it in, there was also an alarm within an adjacent building sounding. Engine 11 from the Rudisill Fire Station was the first on the scene. The firemen entered the building and saw fire at the end of a hall; they also felt a great deal of heat and smoke from the first floor ceiling. They heard a “tremendous noise” as the now dry suppression system filled with air pressure. The men had connected hoses to the Siamese connection outside and began pumping “an excessive amount” of water through the ancient sprinkler system. Minutes passed as they tried to find the source of the heat and smoke. 6 sprinkler heads were open and the water was flowing through the system at roughly 600 gallons per minute at 250 psi., with 2.5 inches diameter hose delivering.
They turned and entered room 7, suddenly a supporting joist gave way between the first and second floor, heavy items rained down through the hole and one large piece of debris stuck a firefighter and despite his heavy helmet, knocked him out cold. His partner immediately grabbed the fallen man and began to drag him though the dim hall towards outside. His communication device failed and the 700 call, “everyone out” was delayed for a few extra moments. The trucks continued pumping and the fire was extinguished after 15 minutes. An ambulance carried the injured fireman away to the hospital where he was treated for a concussion and released. He was allowed to return to work after 17 days and today was his first day back.
A brief inspection was made after the all clear. Burn and smoke patterns lead fire experts to believe that the fire began in a small utility closet on the first floor directly below the Ross practice space. It quickly spread through the area and burned intensely between the floors causing a gaping hole that shot flames up to the roof and the eaves of the second floor. Many of the items in the practice space had fallen through save for a mini-fridge that was found teetering on the edge of the blackened pit.
The room now emptied as the insurance and fire inspectors began their first official tour of the building that had stood condemned for the last 2 weeks. They were there to gather evidence and collect more detailed reports of the suspected cause: wiring, overloaded sockets, malfunctioning computer equipment, all had been suspect in the first pass. We were warned that the damage was extensive to the front of the building and the second floor was spongy and weak.
We were also told that the bulk of the damage was contained to the front half of the building and that the rooms in the back were generally spared all but some smoke and heat damage. We were told that once the evidence was collected and the building was released to the owners and the restoration company, we would be informed when we could recover our possessions but that anything left behind would be removed and destroyed. The whole process of evidence collection and evaluation should take no more than a few days and we should wait for news about when we could sift through what we had to carry what we need to start again somewhere else.
The Indiana Archive Of Abandoned Technology 